In 1964, as a fullback at the University of Nebraska, Frank Solich was so small that he once taped a five-pound weight to the inside of his shorts during the team’s official weigh-in. He still retained the title of “Smallest Player on the Team” by a single pound. 

Then there was the time he stepped on a hotel elevator with a bushel of fellow Husker players and hotel guests. Inside the elevator, the hulking Huskers introduced themselves to the hotel guests until they got to Solich. “This,” they said, “is our team manager.” 

Size has always been a prerequisite for being good at college football. In the early days of the sport, bruising ball-carriers and physical line collisions dominated games. It wasn’t until the introduction of the legal forward pass in 1906 that speed and athleticism became must-haves for college football players. 

Back in the 1960s, legendary Nebraska football coach Bob Devaney had the Huskers humming. He and hot-shot offensive assistant Tom Osborne took college football by storm with a reconfigured I-formation and unbalanced offensive line. 

Solich stood five feet eight inches tall and weighed 158 pounds. Murray Olderman, sports editor for the Beatrice Daily Sun, described Solich “as out of place as a mole in a bikini.” But he was lightning quick, tougher than a two-dollar steak, and perfect as a fullback in Devaney’s system.

He went on to have an illustrious career at Nebraska, becoming co-captain of the 1965 team, notching All-Big Eight honors, and later being inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 1992. His career-defining moment as a player came when he rushed for 204 yards on 17 carries against Air Force in 1965, becoming the first Husker to run for 200 yards in a game. His standout play made him the first Nebraska football player to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. 

After college, Solich cut his teeth as a coach in the Nebraska high school ranks, first at Omaha Holy Name High School and later at Lincoln Southeast High School for 11 years, where he won back-to-back state titles in 1976 and 1977.

Soon after, Solich returned to college football at his alma mater. What came next would change the trajectory of Nebraska and Ohio University football forever.

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After returning to his alma mater in 1979, Solich spent 19 seasons at Nebraska as an assistant coach under legend Tom Osborne. During Solich’s tenure as an assistant, the Huskers captured three national championships and 11 conference titles. Solich was credited with developing Nebraska’s ultra-talented running back room, which churned out standouts like Tom Rathman, Calvin Jones, Lawrence Phillips, and Ahman Green. 

Osborne retired after the 1997 co-national championship season and swiftly named Solich as his successor. Solich ushered Nebraska into a new era of college football and later led the Huskers to a national championship game appearance in 2001. Quarterback Eric Crouch won the Heisman Trophy that year. But Nebraska got stomped in the title game 37-14, in what would be the last hurrah for a proud program on the national stage.

In the seasons that followed, Solich’s Husker teams went 7-7 and 9-3. During the 7-7 2002 season, the Huskers fell out of the rankings for the first time since 1981, snapping a streak of 348 consecutive weeks in the AP Poll. 

After that season, he relinquished play-calling duties and brought in defensive coordinator Bo Pelini. That very next season, Nebraska started 5-0, but suffered three crucial Big 12 losses later in the season. 

What came next changed the trajectory of Solich’s coaching career, the fate of Nebraska football and, depending on who you ask, was the beginning of the “Frank Solich curse” in Lincoln. 

Soon after the final game of the 2003 season, Nebraska AD Steve Pederson fired Solich, and Nebraska became the first Division I football team to fire a head coach immediately following a 9-3 season or better without a scandal. 

To some Husker fans, this was the beginning of the end of Nebraska’s reign of dominance. What came next was a laundry list of missteps and backfires. Bill Callahan, who replaced Solich, flamed out after three underwhelming seasons. Bo Pelini won games at a good clip but rubbed far too many people the wrong way. Mike Riley was too nice for his own good. Scott Frost could never handle the demands of a homecoming. And thus far, Matt Rhule has been bang average, notching a 19-19 record over three seasons.

Fresh off a stunning exit in Lincoln, Solich took a year away from football. Eager to get back in the coaching saddle, he turned his attention eastward and took the head job with Ohio University.

Before Solich arrived in Athens, the Bobcats had just two winning seasons in the previous 22 years. Ohio was one of the worst programs in college football. And at the time, it felt like a miracle that they got their hands on a coach of Solich’s caliber. 

In his first home game at the helm in 2005, Ohio pulled off a spectacular 16-10 upset of Pittsburgh in overtime on national television. That win would later be the foundation for an unprecedented run of winning in the unlikeliest of places. 

The following year, Solich guided the Bobcats to a nine-win season, a MAC East Division title, and the program’s first bowl game appearance since 1968. From 2009 onward, Ohio was a mainstay in the MAC. The Bobcats went 10 straight seasons without a losing record, posted at least nine wins six times, and captured division titles in 2009, 2011, and 2016.

Solich coached in Athens for 15 seasons, amassing a 115-82 record. He left his post as the winningest coach in MAC football history.

On Saturday, Ohio and Nebraska will square off at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, the place Solich called home for so many years.

Solich hasn’t coached in Lincoln for 23 years. He’s six years removed from his last game in Athens. And yet when both teams take the field, it’s hard not to think about Solich, what he accomplished at both universities, and what’s happened since. 

On the home sideline stands Nebraska, a team that’s been on a treadmill of mediocrity since Solich and his successor, Bo Pelini, were let go for different reasons. 

Nebraska has struggled to contend on the national stage since Solich’s departure. From Callahan and Pelini to Riley and Frost, no one has matched Solich’s winning ways in Lincoln. Enter Matt Rhule. Rhule, known as the ultimate program builder and turnaround artist, has failed to find his footing after three seasons at the helm. He’s 19-19 since the start of the 2023 season, with numerous close-game losses hanging over the program like a dark cloud.

This season, Rhule has a reconfigured coaching staff, a livewire quarterback in Anthony Colandrea, and more expectations than ever that this will be the year the Huskers break through and make inroads in a crowded Big Ten league. 

On the other side of this matchup sits Ohio, which has undergone its fair share of growing pains since Solich departed after a health scare. Solich’s successor in Athens, Tim Albin, won 10 games three times before leaving for Charlotte. Brian Smith coached for one full season before a scandal cost him his job. This season, John Hauser, previously the Bobcats’ defensive coordinator, takes over as head coach after Smith’s exit.

On the field, this game feels straightforward. The Huskers are heavy favorites, and barring something unexpected, they should handily take care of business in Colandrea’s debut. 

Solich isn’t coaching in this game. But in many ways, he’s the reason it matters.

During his playing days, Solich claimed he only felt small on a football field once in his life. 

He got squashed on a run play up the middle in a game against old Big Eight rival Colorado. After the play, a Buffaloes’ defensive lineman popped up and barked, “That’s the best you can do, Mighty Mouse?”

Solich had a swift and tidy response. “I know I’m small,” Solich said, shaking his head. “But I’m not that small.” 

Throughout an excellent four-year run as a Husker fullback and an iconic coaching career that spanned over two decades in Lincoln and Athens, Solich did what many thought was impossible.

He’s not just the guy who taped a five-pound weight to his shorts or who was constantly judged for his lack of stature. 

No scale could measure what he actually carried—and no moment, it turned out, was too big for Frank Solich.

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College football’s first full weekend is finally here, and Week 1 is throwing a whole lot of unknowns directly into the fire. We make our picks for the biggest games on the schedule and try to figure out which teams are actually ready for the moment across five days of games from Thursday night through Labor Day.

How quickly can new quarterbacks and new coaches settle in? Can Clemson’s offense find enough answers in Death Valley? What should we expect from Auburn and Baylor in Atlanta, Louisville and Ole Miss in Nashville, and Wisconsin and Notre Dame at Lambeau Field? We also dig into SMU-Florida State, UCLA-Cal, Boise State-Oregon and several other games where one matchup could tell us much more about these teams than the final score.

Then we go hunting for the games hiding beneath the radar, identify our Window of Opportunity, make our locks and upset picks, and prepare to leap into the great unknown of our 19th season of college football podcasting.

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